Josh's Journey

The Strongest Advertising Tool

Posted on March 30, 2019 by Josh Geyer

Image by Teono123 No

Humans are visual creatures. In general, if you have to choose between watching a video or reading text, you will probably choose the video. 60% of users will watch video before they read any text if it’s available (Boast.com), and the popularity of YouTube at over 2 billion users is certainly a testament to this as well.

Video was first used for advertising in the 1940s, when a watch company put on a short ad during a sports game. From there, video advertising blossomed into a massive industry, and today it has become a key component of any marketing strategy. But why exactly has it become so popular?

The first reason is that video moves. The human eye is attracted to motion, so video is inherently attention grabbing. When scrolling through social media, a sudden motion may be enough to catch your eye and make you stop, which is key for setting yourself apart in a sea of content.

The second reason is that it stimulates multiple senses at the same time. Combining sight and sound creates an immersive experience that more closely mimics our realities, and this helps to keep our attention. It also takes considerably less mental effort to watch a video than it does to read, and in a culture that increasingly caters to shorter attention spans, this is an important factor.

Another positive aspect of video is that it can be used in a lot of different ways. Short, medium, long, television, Internet, social media, billboards, these are just some of the potential variables that can be manipulated to create an extremely personalized campaign. Furthermore, even though video can be very expensive at the highest levels, a basic but effective video marketing campaign could be created with a small budget. With all of this in mind, there is no reason in today’s world to not incorporate video into your marketing strategy, so how can you get started?

First of all, you need to identify what kind of content your business should be producing, which means identifying your target audience. Are they younger? Then you are probably better off with Internet advertising on streaming services like Hulu or YouTube. Are they older? Then consider TV advertising or Facebook advertising. Once you know the platform and demographic, you can start making decisions about other key variables, namely length, tone, style, and
quality.

Length is obvious, it’s just about how long or short your video is. Longer videos have more potential for providing information and telling a story, but they also have a high potential of losing your audience’s interest. Short videos are much more likely to keep the audience’s attention for the entire time, but they can’t communicate as much information. Both can be effective or ineffective depending on the situation, so just be careful and work to find the balance between being informative and keeping people’s attention.

Tone and style are closely related. Tone describes the attitude of the video, as in how happy, sad, funny, or emotional it is. Style describes the technical characteristics of the video, such as the speed, the music, the editing, etc. The style determines the tone, and the tone plays an important role in how audiences will feel about your brand. Is your brand about comedy? Is it about being serious and emotional? People frequently buy with emotion, not logic, so make sure that your tone fits your brand’s goals.

Finally, there’s quality. Quality is generally determined by what resources you have available to you, but it can also be an important factor in what you are communicating about your business. Think about online video marketers, such as the famous Tai Lopez, who walk around holding their cell phones in front of them, talking for several minutes. There is nothing special about these videos, anyone can make them, and these individuals certainly have the money to hire a top-class video crew, so why don’t they? The reason is that this low budget style feels very personal and human. They are showing that they are normal people just like the rest of us, they don’t need fancy crews to do the talking for them, they can do it themselves. This personal flair makes them seem more genuine and trustworthy, and it helps them to sell their product. So, before you go hiring a crew to make you the highest quality video you can afford, think about your company and the people you are selling to. They make like a high quality video, but it’s just as possible that it will make them feel disconnected with your brand.

Video is a very powerful tool if you use it right, and you don’t have the break the bank to get it. Although there are a lot of variables that make it easy to fail when it comes to developing a strong video strategy, its potential to grow your brand and capture audience attention makes it a key part of modern advertising.

My Journey with BrandYourself

Posted on March 30, 2019 by Josh Geyer

Earlier this year, I went over to brandyourself.com and made an account. BrandYourself is a company dedicated to helping you optimize your online presence, all so that you can be more easily found in the endlessness of the Internet. It’s a great premise, but does it really work?

Before we get into that, let me tell you a bit about how the site functions. After you make your account, you are asked to connect your websites and social media profiles to BrandYourself, and you are then presented with the first page or so of search results from when people search your name on Google. You identify which, if any, of those searches are about you, and then you get a score. Here’s my score from the first time around.

Having an understanding of how easily you can be found online is a great thing for people trying to get their name out there, and this isn’t even the best part. BrandYourself provides an individual analysis of all of the sites and profiles you connected, and it gives you detailed suggestions about how you can improve each of them to improve your presence. It also provides lots of details on any negative search results that come up or anything on your social media that might be damaging your reputation. Following all of their guidelines, you can set yourself up for online success. But, I do still have some issues with the site.

I went through all of their suggestions, and while many seemed very useful and practical, I disagreed with many others. For example, for my YouTube bio, I want something short and simple because I think it sounds better and I want to let my videos do the talking. BrandYourself suggested a very long bio in which I repeated my full name several times, and this was a recurring pattern for other bios and about pages.

While I’m sure this is a good idea in terms of SEO optimization, from a personal and human aspect, I felt that it was really lacking. It seemed awkward, and I have the same issue with many of the other improvements that they suggested. With that being said, I still think that the site had a very positive impact on my online presence. It made me think a lot about what I was communicating, and I became much more careful and thoughtful in my word choice.

After using BrandYourself, my online presence has definitely improved. I don’t think I will get much additional traffic because of the changes that I made, but for the people who do find their way to my stuff, I think they will have a much more positive experience.

Here is my updated score from after making my changes. It is only a small improvement, but it was an important one nonetheless. I don’t think BrandYourself will make you into an Internet guru, but it is a powerful tool that will only get better with time. So, if you are looking to make some big changes in the way the Internet world sees you, you know where to go.

Collaboration in the Modern Workplace

Posted on March 2, 2019 by Josh Geyer

A century ago, the majority of the population worked jobs in factories and fields. In these environments, as in almost all other occupations during this period and before, there was a focus on obedience. Workers were meant to follow orders and just do their jobs, and the intellectual work was to be left the the higher-ups. But over the course of the past century, things have begun to shift. Automation has decreased the need for low skill workers, and increases in wages and the availability of education have allowed for the pursuit of careers more dependent on creative thought. As a result, the workplace has shifted from a climate of blind following to one of collaboration and individual contribution.

As I said, automation has greatly reduced the need for factory workers, and in the next century, this need will likely drop to zero. The abundance
resulting from this automation, however, has created a massive amount of jobs focused on societal needs and creative pursuits. These fields require individuals to pull together ideas and experiences to find new ways of tackling problems and telling stories, and this process is far more effective when working in groups. Groups allow individuals to openly exchange and provide feedback on ideas, which helps to prevent errors and improve concepts. In order to succeed in the modern workplace, creative skills are essential, but collaboration skills are just as important.

Widespread intellectual collaboration in the workplace is a relatively new idea in human history. For thousands of years, most people were told they should follow their leader and keep quiet, but people don’t have to do that anymore. Instead, they are expected to provide input and critique in discussions, and they must learn how to harness their individual skills to increase their contribution to the group. This change has allowed many creative people to pursue what they are passionate about, but it certainly has its drawbacks.

In a group, one bad apple spoils the bunch. If even one person fails to pull their weight, the group will struggle to achieve its purpose. Unfortunately, this is extremely common in groups, as myself and many of my fellow college students have learned. More often than not, one member always shows up late, if they show up at all, and when they do show up, they contribute very little. When the time comes to do the work, they do the bare minimum, and the quality of the project diminishes substantially. Other problems come in with group leaders. The title of ‘manager’ isn’t proof of one’s ability, and often times, managers are self-centered and struggle to organize and motivate their team. It can also create negative power dynamics, making employees feel like they are powerless and have no voice. This has led companies like Zappos to get rid of managers almost entirely, and even though many companies do not go this far, a similar style of flattened leadership has been adopted by a substantial number of employers.

Collaboration is key to success in any creative field, because problems are frequently too large and diverse for the time and skill set of a single person. People are not perfect, and this often leads to disaster, but if a team can deal with individual weaknesses and work in such a way that the potential of each group member is maximized, the possibilities are staggering. This could be achieved through more careful selection of team members, the flattening of workplace hierarchies, or the implementation of new policies that encourage open expression, but there are many other methods that could be similarly effective. Regardless of how it is achieved, fostering collaboration is essential for any modern business.

Thanks for reading, I’ll be on break for a little while here, but keep your eyes peeled for my next post!

Josh Geyer

10 Jobs I Want.

Posted on February 22, 2019 by Josh Geyer

This week, I am covering some of the places that I am interested in working at, as well as how I would need to improve to be a qualified applicant. Here are my top 10:

Digital Content Intern at Pencils of Promise

Skills Required
– Video editing on any professional software
– Experience with DSLRs
– Strong understanding of social media metrics and the importance of data

What I Need to Work On
An important aspect of this internship is to have skills in video production. I have been making videos for over 4 years now and have a lot of editing experience, so I believe I am already reasonably qualified in that regard. The other aspects of the job, however, like social media data analysis and heavy blogging, are not as much in my wheelhouse. To gain these skills, I want to continue working on my blog and building my own social media brand, using myself as a case study to learn more about data analysis.

Video Production Intern at DP+

Skills Required
– Varies depending on type of internship, but generally requires very strong filming and editing skills
– Knowledge of brand marketing and development

What I Need to Work On
My experience with filming and editing could make me a pretty strong candidate, but my knowledge of brand marketing is still not very good. Again, practicing with my own social media to see how I can continue to grow my personal brand would take me to the next level.

Content Intern at The Mill

Skills Required
– Good working knowledge of Microsoft Excel
– Knowledge of Canon 5D preferred
– Pursuing coursework in film production or digital media

What I Need to Work On
I have a basic understanding of Excel, but it is not nearly strong enough. I need to watch more tutorials, and I am also considering taking a class to learn more. I have not worked with the 5D specifically, but I have worked with near identical cameras, so that should not be an issue.

Creative Director at Wieden + Kennedy

Skills Required
There are no official listings out for this position, but I have seen the work of several of their creative directors. It would require a powerful creative vision, lots of experience directing large scale productions, and great management skills.

What I Need to Work On
I have been following WK’s work for a long time. They make the Old Spice commercials as well as many of the KFC commercials, and I love what they do. This is my dream, but to get a position as a creative director, I would need way more experience in content planning and directing for commercial video productions. This would mean continuing writing and directing my own productions and working on becoming a strong leader while refining my craft and developing my vision.

Creative at Mother

Skills Required
There are no official listings for positions, I would have to inquire directly, but the requirements would roughly be several years of experience in brand marketing strategy as well as in production for photo and video advertisements.

What I Need to Work On
Mother does a lot of really unique advertisements. I would need to really developing my understanding of brand marketing and strategy through my courses, as well as through internships and jobs in the marketing field. Refining my craft as a video producer through practice will also be necessary.

Creative Director at Virtue

Skills Required
– 8-10 years agency experience as a creative.
– A background in copy but an understanding and eye for good art direction.
– Can create big ideas and the tactics that accompany them. And then sell them in.
– Emotionally intelligent with the ability to manage other creatives.
– Solutions oriented. Knows how to deal with feedback and relay it to their team.
– Strong knowledge of digital production and experience with video shoots.
– Strong presentation skills.
– Pragmatic but inspired.
– Has a diversified background and a variety of interests to draw inspiration from.
– CPG, Beauty, Fashion or Luxury experience is a plus, but let’s see what else you’ve got!

What I Need to Work On
I need to work in the field for almost a decade before I can qualify for this, but it would be a very interesting job. Working at different advertising and production agencies as well as gaining experience in leadership is what I would need for this.

Art Director at SPARK

Skills Required
-Stellar presentation skills and the ability to articulate big ideas in a simple way
– Build strong concepts no matter the industry or media
– An eye for how to create great, art directed work
– Handle multiple production jobs from pre-pro to post
– Experience leading others
– Passion for cross-departmental collaboration and commitment to the team concept
– A true student of the industry

What I Need to Work On
I would need to diversify my experience from just video to all art fields, while also working on my leadership and presentation skills. I want to practice my graphic design skills a lot more, while also working toward leading a video production team to gain the necessary experience.

Creative at Martin Agency

Skills Required
There is no official listing for this position at the moment, but an intense understanding of video as a craft and brand marketing strategies would be key.

What I Need to Work On
I would need to develop a very strong portfolio, while at the same time practicing with promoting my own content to really nail down my marketing abilities.

Video Production Intern at Goodby Silverstein

What I Need to Work On
I need to keep developing my portfolio and building my personal brand, while diversifying my skills enough to be useful in multiple ways. Through participation in an internship this Summer, plus my individual and course work over the next year, I think I will have the required experience.

Video Production Team Member at HZ

What I Need to Work On
Building my brand and refining my craft as a videographer through real world experience is what I need to land a position here. I also need to broaden my horizons to master different software applications, both for editing and analytical purposes.

Thanks for reading, tune in next week for my take on collaboration in the workplace!

Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, and the Art of Marketing

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Josh Geyer

Images: Brian Bloom and
AT&T AUDIENCE Network

The Tim Ferriss Show #343: Seth Godin on How to Say “No,” Market Like a Professional, and Win at Life

In November of 2018, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin returned as a guest on the Tim Ferriss show. Godin has written over 40 books on marketing and personal development, and in this episode, he shares a few key insights on how to manage life and market effectively. Here are just a few of the tidbits from the episode that I found the most intriguing.

You are your own boss, and you probably suck at it.

This one really stuck out. As Godin describes it, you are your own manager. You decide the things you do and don’t do every single day, so you should treat yourself the way that you would expect a great manager to treat you. A good manager wouldn’t let you waste hours watching YouTube, or scrolling through Instagram, then Twitter, then Snapchat, then Facebook. They wouldn’t talk to you in the negative and demeaning way that you talk to yourself. Instead, they would be focusing on making you better at every step, so that you can work as efficiently as possible and find deep meaning in what you do.

This is not easy to do. It requires a great deal of discipline and practice, but if you can learn to manage yourself, then you can start to do some really amazing things.

Find your smallest viable audience.

For a long time, I was under the impression that products needed to be made for the largest audience possible. In doing so, they would be able to make the most sales. But in recent years, I have discovered that the opposite is actually true, and Godin sums this up perfectly.

Godin gives the example of Tim Ferriss himself. Tim is a millionaire with an extremely successful podcast and a long list of bestselling books, but 99% of people on Earth have never heard of him. Fans like myself are more than willing to listen to his shows and on occasion, buy his books, but no one else really cares. Even so, he doesn’t need a massive audience, he just needs his small group of die-hard fans who will support him endlessly.

This principle is true of all marketing. I thought for a long time that whatever content I produced, it would need to appeal to a massive audience in order to be profitable. This simply isn’t true. If you want to grow your customer base, find the group of people who really like what you do, and let them pay you for it.

People will pay. A lot.

According to Godin, the biggest mistake a new business can make is pricing their product incorrectly. He cites the example of ketogenic dog food. It is marketed as being much healthier and higher quality than other dog food brands, so naturally, the price is considerably higher. The actual difference between brands may be marginal or nonexistent, and it may be produced for just as much as the other dog foods on the shelf, but that’s not why people buy it. They buy it because they think it is high quality and it makes them feel good. If it was priced considerably lower, it might be more cost effective, but the customer would also think that it was a lower quality product, and probably wouldn’t buy it.

Some people love a bargain, but more people love quality and status. Buying the best, most expensive product leads one to believe that what they are getting really is the best, and it also sends a message to the people around them that they have the money to buy these expensive products. People aren’t looking for cheap knockoffs, they want the real deal. That’s why when you walk into Walmart and you have to choose between name brand Aspirin or Walmart’s knockoff brand, you probably choose Aspirin, even though the ingredients are exactly the same in both and Walmart’s is half the price. People don’t buy logically, and if you choose just the right price, you can take advantage of this to make a whole lot of money.

Thanks for reading, and make sure to head over to Tim’s blog to listen to this podcast for yourself, there are a lot of deep insights that I didn’t cover. Come back next week for my next post, and make sure to check me out on social media!

Josh

Life with Social Media

Posted on January 31, 2019February 15, 2019 by Josh Geyer

I have a complicated relationship with social media. On one hand, I think it is the worst distraction humanity has ever created, I think it encourages a very superficial view of life, and I think it can seriously distort a person’s perspective on themselves and everything around them. On the other hand, I think it is the most valuable marketing tool in existence.

For a film and video major who is trying to grow his online presence, this probably seems like a poor decision. Social media is the best way for me to gain recognition and get my work out there, so shouldn’t I be using it actively?

The short answer is yes, but only if I can avoid the consequences.

There are only a few ways to advertise my videos, and social media is without a doubt the most effective one. I can send out my work for free to a large audience, and that audience can subsequently spread the video to an even larger audience. If I want to promote my own image or a brand’s, social media can help me do that too. Studying it can also help with identifying who your main customers are, which is invaluable to any business.

With all of that in mind, it is obvious that avoiding social media in my professional life would be a mistake. But when it comes to my personal life, I think avoidance is the best policy.

The first problem I have with social media is that it is such a powerful distraction. I frequently find myself on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms with no good reason to be there, and I end up scrolling and scrolling, wasting lots of precious time that I could spend doing much more productive things.

Next, it skews my view of the world. When you see a post on social media describing some story, you don’t get the full narrative. You get a headline, and unless you then decide to research the topic with perspectives from multiple sources, the meaning you take from that headline ends up being the final meaning. It might not be accurate, it might not be true, it might be overly pessimistic, but either way, that is the meaning that you take. Ultimately, you just end up with a half-baked meaning that keeps you from seeing the world as it actually is.

You also don’t get the full story about the individuals posting on social media. They may post a happy photo of them living their perfect life, but the reality might be that they aren’t actually that happy, and they have just as many problems as you do. You, however, don’t know that, so you may just assume that they have it better than you. The same happens if your posts aren’t getting as many likes as other people’s. You can start to judge yourself as a person based on that, but it doesn’t reflect the real you, it just reflects the online, superficial you. This can make you feel like you are lesser, and I just don’t think it is healthy for the psyche.

There are probably more reasons than just these, but these are the ones that I think are the most detrimental. But as I mentioned before, I have no intention of stopping my social media use. So how will I keep using social media without all the bad stuff, and how can you do the same?

Separate ‘Me’ from ‘Social Media Me’

Social media is the most dangerous when you have your identity wrapped up in it. If you can separate yourself so that you don’t judge your personal value based on the number of likes you get, then you won’t walk away feeling dejected when you use social media. You are a different person on social media than you are in real life. Don’t compare the two. Don’t judge one based off the other. Obviously it is your social media and you should try to be genuine, but succeeding on social media requires a very different set of skills than succeeding in real life. It’s the same for everyone else, so don’t let it be your judge.

Use It When You Need To

Just getting on social media for a quick shot of happiness is fine, but it is easy to abuse. Limit your use to when you are ready to post, or analyzing, or liking some posts to get other people more interested in your stuff. The point is, have a purpose. Don’t scroll aimlessly, because that just brings you closer to all of the negatives.

So there you go, that’s what I think of social media. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think, and keep on your toes for next weeks post!

How the Internet Changed Advertising

Posted on January 15, 2019January 26, 2019 by Josh Geyer

Image: The Mill

My personal love affair with advertising began many years ago when I saw a commercial featuring “the man your man could smell like.”

I always thought advertising was boring. Prints and visuals were just extraneous visuals in our lives that didn’t get in the way but didn’t really matter, and all commercials did was take time away from the thing that you actually wanted to watch. But after seeing the aforementioned commercial from Old Spice, and many more commercials like it from the same brand, my mind changed.

Old Spice commercials are fundamentally nonsensical. In one, Terry Crews is trapped in a painting while his rival plays chess with a lion. In another, a pilot is panicking as he flies through a storm, but a beautiful woman instructs him to put on Old Spice grooming products. After doing so, he regains his composure and crashes perfectly into the woman’s house, where a romantic dinner has already been prepared for the two of them.

These commercials make no effort whatsoever at explaining why Old Spice is logically the best deodorant, but they are hilarious, and every time I see one, I fall more and more deeply in love with Old Spice as a brand. These commercials showed me that advertising can be exciting and entertaining, but without the internet, I don’t believe they ever would have existed.

The rise of the Internet has led to the birth of a new culture. The internet gives anyone with a computer an equal shot at sharing their content, which means unique styles that had never been seen before, mostly because they weren’t mainstream enough, were able to come into the light. The style that is reflected in the Old Spice commercials was born out of the unique content that the Internet has allowed for. It is difficult to describe this style, but it is something like this: “fast-paced green screen intensive non sequitur comedy.”

Before the internet, this style would not have been accepted. At it’s very core it is strange and seeks to defy all conventions. But younger generations raised with the weirdness of the internet have adapted to it, and as a result, brands like Old Spice have been able to come in and capitalize. Commercials and videos like these showed me how cool advertising can be, and none of it could have existed without the culture created by the internet.

This isn’t the only way the internet has changed advertising. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook have stolen massive quantities of viewers from cable television, and streaming services like Netflix and HBO have taken even more. This means that classic TV ads aren’t worth nearly as much as they were, and online marketing has become essential. Thus, appealing to the aforementioned internet culture is incredibly important, but it is not easy.

If a brand attempts to be trendy and “appeal to the kids” when they are out of touch with reality, they will be viewed very negatively. An example would be advertisements from people like Tai Lopez. Lopez gained a huge amount of negative attention for his ads, but because it was still attention, a bunch of other people started trying to copy him. But because everyone already saw Lopez as a scam, any video styled after him is viewed as a scam too, so at least for me personally, there is no way I would trust the advertiser

The Internet has changed advertising and public relations forever, so for a brand trying to market itself well, they must connect with their audiences on the Internet. This can be very difficult, so consulting with future consumers first to see what they really like, not what you think they will like, is perhaps the best answer.